Kid Cudi, ‘Indicud’

Kid Cudi, 'Indicud'

Score

The record sounds like a college project put together by a stoned teenager

On the track ‘Immortal’, Kid Cudi calls himself “the smartest man alive”. It’s an unfortunate statement to make on the 29-year-old’s third and worst album. 2009’s ‘Man On The Moon: The End Of Day’ and 2010’s ‘Man On The Moon II: The Legend Of Mr Rager’ worked because of the dry wit holding them together, but ‘Indicud’ lacks this. It also suffers from Cudi largely self-producing it. The luscious soundscapes he used to rap over are gone, and the record sounds like a college project put together by a stoned teenager intrigued by industrial noises and, on ‘Young Lady’, the Father John Misty song ‘Hollywood Forever Cemetery’. There are exceptions. Haim pop up for a good guest spot on the baked ‘Red Eye’, ‘Solo Dolo Part II’ features some classic Kendrick Lamar lyrical dexterity and lead single ‘Just What I Am’ is old-school Cudi. But the album could do with being at least half of its 70 minutes, to cut out the self-indulgent meandering.